Sustenance
by Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
Summary: What does one need in order to survive? In the Year of Hell, Janeway and Chakotay have different answers. Mild language.


TITLE: Sustenance  
AUTHOR: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring  
RATING: PG, mild language  
PART: 1/1  
CODES: J/C   
DISCLAIMER: Paramount, yada yada yada  
SUMMARY: What does one need in order to be sustained? In the Year of Hell, Janeway and Chakotay have different answers.  
  
  
YEAR OF HELL: DAY 65  
  
Captain Kathryn Janeway sat alone in the darkened shambles of her quarters. Through dint of effort, she had managed to clean away enough of the debris and wreckage that despoiled the rooms -- as they did the whole ship -- to clear her bed and a tiny area around it. She sat on the edge of the bed now, her legs and feet occupying that small, precious measure of free deck. Almost too tired to chew, she sipped at her mug, though it held nothing more appetizing than a ration bar, soaked in lukewarm water to soften it. She squeezed bits of softened ration between her tongue and the roof of her mouth.  
  
May 20. Her birthday. How in hell her first officer had kept track of that, in the hideous chaos of the last weeks, she didn't know. Didn't want to know. Was that what Chakotay thought of, when he should have been thinking of the tactical situation, of ship's maintenance, of the increasingly desperate state of everything, and everyone, on board? Sentimental considerations? How the hell had he survived on a Maquis ship in a war zone, if this was his idea of priorities?  
  
He had even offered her a gift. She wondered if she should have been grateful, but in her exhaustion the only emotion she could summon was a dull anger. A watch -- a symbol, a toy. Precious replication time and energy that should have been put to better use, for supplies, for medicine, for food. Even though he had replicated it months ago, well before their current crisis, he should have known without being told that it should be converted for use, rather than saved as a useless luxury. But no, she had actually had to tell him to recycle it. He had tried to resist the order, with an incredulous protest, but she had been quite definite. Voyager had no use for sentimentality or symbolism now. Practical realities, those were all that mattered.  
  
She heard a chime at the entrance to her quarters, and said wearily, "Come."  
  
The door opened, and in the dim light that spilled in from the corridor, she could see the solid form of her first officer standing in the entranceway. Then the door closed as he advanced into the room, picking his way carefully through the debris. "Captain."  
  
"Commander." She managed to haul herself to her feet as he made his way toward the inner room. "Report."  
  
"Well, Housekeeping is tearing their hair out," he said, with a hint of his old humor. "They'd like to know if you're planning to revise the standard on dust accumulation any time soon. They're having a hard time meeting the old requirements."  
  
"Very funny." She sat back down. "We're in the middle of the most critical situation this ship has ever faced, and you came all the way to my quarters to tell me bad jokes. I'm not in the mood, Commander. Do you have a report to make?"  
  
"As a matter of fact, I do." He was closer now, close enough that she could distinguish the blackness of his moustache and the dark stain of a bruised cheekbone against the deep shadows in which his face was painted. Stopping where he stood, he linked his hands behind his back and took up a reporting stance. "Harry says that shields have been restored to thirty-four percent, but he hopes to improve that in the next few hours. Tuvok wanted me to tell you that internal security systems have been reactivated. Again," he added without a trace of irony. "Engineering has locked down the power drain in life support, so that's running at about eighty-percent efficiency on all decks currently in use." He relaxed his stance. "Everything else you know. You haven't been off the bridge that long, after all."  
  
"Tell me about it." She sipped at her soup again, trying to pretend it was something more civilized than what it truly was: merely something to keep her alive. At that, there was still some small pleasure in the feeling of it going down her throat, filling her belly. God, it seemed almost decadent to take pleasure in a morsel of food, a simulacrum of privacy, when her ship was so abused, her crew at such risk. But she needed this, needed the moment's respite it represented with a hunger that was far more than need of food. "I feel like I haven't been off the bridge in days."  
  
"That sounds about right," he agreed softly. "And at that, I was surprised to find out you'd left it now."  
  
She eyed him suspiciously, saw him regarding her, in turn, with an expression of concern. "This isn't going to turn into a lecture on taking better care of myself, is it? I don't have time for that, Chakotay. You know as well as I do that this ship needs every pair of hands that can hold a spanner or program a computer. I can't let my rank --"  
  
He put one hand up in a placating gesture. "I know the situation, Kathryn. I was only going to say that I'm glad you were able to take a few minutes for yourself. You've been working harder than any of us, these last few days." He came a step closer, and she realized that, even excepting the facial hair and the bruise, not all of the shadows on his face came from the dim lighting. Some of them were the dark creases of a weariness that matched her own.  
  
He was exhausted too. They all were. Most of them did not even have quarters of their own where they could take refuge, not any more. And here she sat, in her own private rooms, taking comfort in the softness of her mattress, in the flavor of her food, while others did the work --  
  
She started to her feet, found that he had stepped too close to allow her room to rise. "Chakotay --"  
  
"Relax, Kathryn," he said softly, his voice too diffident to represent a challenge to her authority.  
  
"No," she said harshly, and tried to wiggle past him so that she could stand, resenting the way his simple presence made the move awkward, if not impossible.  
  
"Kathryn," he said again, and two big hands (strong, heavy, warm) descended onto her shoulders. Reflexively, she tensed. Touching her -- no one was allowed to touch her, least of all him --  
  
But he *was* touching her. "Let me help," he murmured. If his voice was still low, still reserved, there was nothing diffident about the way his hands massaged her shoulders, strong fingers plying cords of muscle too tight, at first, to feel anything more than a distant sense of pressure.  
  
She should order him away. Push him away. Get up. Get back to work. The captain should not permit this kind of familiarity, not now. Maybe not ever. "Take your hands off me," she said sharply.  
  
The plying fingers stopped, though they did not withdraw, and Chakotay cocked his head for a moment as if considering her words. "No," he said at last, and returned to his task.  
  
"Chakotay --"  
  
"Kathryn," her first officer answered evenly. He found a particularly taut spot at the junction of neck and shoulder, and concentrated on it. "Captain. Repairs are proceeding ahead of estimates. According to our long-range sensors there haven't been any Krenim ships in our vicinity for more than twenty hours. This would be an ideal time for you to get some rest." She hissed as sensation returned to the taut area, and pain. He continued to work. "You've been on duty for forty-three of the last forty-eight hours. Do you really think that driving yourself to exhaustion will help the crew the next time we have to face the Krenim?"  
  
"I won't ask any of the crew to do anything I wouldn't do myself."  
  
"Really?" The pain began to fade under his hands, in that one small area, at least. "You ordered B'Elanna to take six hours off duty."  
  
"She was tired. She was getting sloppy."  
  
"And you're immune to that." Fingers found another tense area, began to massage.  
  
She bristled. "Are you accusing me of something?"  
  
"Only humanity." Again the progression began, through pain toward relief. "You need rest yourself, Captain."  
  
"I have work to do," she muttered.  
  
"You'll do it better after you get some sleep," he returned evenly.  
  
"Really. And what about you?"  
  
"What about me?" Inexorably his hands pushed away the pain, worked through the tension.  
  
"When do you sleep?"  
  
"I'll sleep when you come back on duty."  
  
"Ha."  
  
"You can make it an order," he reminded, his voice calm.  
  
"I could make it an order now," she said irritably.  
  
"Yes, you could." Strong fingers continued their efforts. Though she'd already been exhausted, she felt an even greater lassitude permeating the areas he'd massaged, seeping into her whole body. "But that wouldn't make you need the rest any less."  
  
God, he was good at this, better even than she remembered. She was ready to slump bonelessly down into the mattress, let the weariness take her. But she couldn't yield -- couldn't --  
  
Summoning up what felt like her last reserves of strength, she said, "Stop trying to coddle me, dammit."  
  
"I'm not coddling you." It was said as a statement of fact. "I'm trying to help you. Which is my job."  
  
"Do you expect me to believe that's all you're doing?" Expect me to believe that this has nothing to do with--" She wouldn't let herself finish the thought, wouldn't let herself consider what his other reasons might be.  
  
"Yes, I expect you to believe that's all I'm doing." His voice acquired an edge. "If you're questioning my motives, maybe I should bring in Tuvok or the Doctor."  
  
Neither was an inviting prospect. Though her blinded security chief might be somewhat handicapped in performance of his regular duties, he was still quite capable of mounting an endless lecture. The Doctor would fuss, perhaps in the end even order her to rest; though she could try to defy him, with her first officer and her security chief backing him up it would be difficult. She did not have the strength to deal with him, with all of them...."Four hours," she said at last. "Unless something happens."  
  
"Eight," he countered evenly, fingers soothing away another tension-ache.  
  
"Six," she conceded finally.  
  
"Done. Finish your dinner."  
  
Stifling another surge of irritation, she lifted the mug to her lips, drained it dry. "Anything else, Mother?"  
  
"Yes," he returned, again unruffled. "Lie down on your stomach and let me finish the massage."  
  
She would not have obeyed just to obey, of course, but she would need to lie down in any event if she was going to sleep....  
  
She fell asleep while he was still massaging her.  
  
*****  
  
"Rest well, Kathryn," Chakotay murmured, allowing himself the luxury of stroking her tangled hair just once before he turned to go. Picking his way carefully through the debris, he managed to make it, first to her bedroom entrance, then to the doors of her quarters, without another sound. He would have hushed the opening doors if he could.  
  
Once outside her quarters, he said, softly but quite clearly, "Computer. The captain is off-duty for the next six hours. For the duration of that time, reroute any communications addressed to her, other than alert signals, to my location."  
  
He waited a moment, loosed a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding when the familiar voice responded: "Acknowledged."  
  
"If anyone attempts to use the door signal or enter her quarters for that time period, advise them to contact me instead."  
  
"Acknowledged."  
  
She wouldn't like it when she found out about those restrictions, as she almost certainly would, but as officer and as friend he would rather live with her wrath than let her deprive herself of sleep indefinitely. As things were, he wished he could give her more than six hours of rest, but knew he'd best stick to the letter of his bargain if he ever hoped to persuade her again. He wasn't likely to have an easy time of that anyhow, if tonight were any indication.  
  
At least she had accepted this gift, unlike the other, the one Chakotay had tried to give her this morning. Fingertips found the little pocket in his uniform, the one where the chronometer still resided. He let his fingers curl over the solid metal object, just for a moment.  
  
He had thought he would try to give it to her again tonight; perhaps a present would be more acceptable to her when she was at least nominally off-duty and they were in no danger of being interrupted. It had taken him only moments to realize he had been mistaken. She would not accept it now, would probably never accept it so long as Voyager remained in danger.  
  
Kathryn was a practical woman. "A meal, a hypospray, a pair of boots," she had said. That was what the chronometer represented to her: what its mass could be converted into. (Though she overestimated the metal involved in the chronometer's manufacture, if she thought it had enough mass to be converted to a pair of boots.) He realized now that, in their present situation, it was all the chronometer would ever represent to her.  
  
//Well, if that's what it's worth, Kathryn, then I've paid for it.// His empty stomach growled as if in answer to that thought; the sound, oddly, made him smile. One meal. He had made it plain to Neelix that he would skin the Talaxian alive if Neelix ever told the captain that Chakotay had refused his evening ration; the weary cook and morale officer had not felt inclined to argue with him.  
  
Kathryn would have given him hell if she knew; worse, she might have guessed his reasoning, and demanded, once again, the sacrifice of the little object he was protecting. He would not take that chance. He did not have so much excess flesh as he'd had once, but he had enough to weather the loss of a single meal without any lasting impairment of his efficiency. And there were hungers besides those of the body to be satisfied, even (perhaps especially) in this situation.  
  
Chakotay was not without his own sense of practicality, but he was more a spiritual man than a practical one. Perhaps that was what his long, self-imposed exile in Starfleet had taught him: how hungers of the spirit craved sustenance as much as those of the body, that to deny them was to leave yourself more than empty. He had thought, in offering Kathryn the chronometer, that he was offering her food for her spirit: a solid reminder of the value of persistence, and a tangible statement of his own faith in her. But she did not crave food for her spirit, not yet. Or perhaps she did not know her soul well enough to know that it hungered.  
  
If her spirit, her soul, did not crave nourishment yet, his did. And he would take that nourishment where he could, in the forbidden touch that proved to his senses that she lived, in the sight of the quiet rest that proved he could still look after her needs in some small way, in the feel and the sound of a ticking watch that symbolized the hope of victory in a struggle that, lately, had become harder than any Kathryn's long-ago naval counterpart could have endured. His heart would take solace in knowing that, in this place where necessities were becoming unbearably dear, he could afford one luxury: the luxury of saving this gift for Kathryn, in the belief that one day the day -- the peaceful day -- would come when she would let herself accept it.  
  
He drew the watch out of its recessed pocket and let himself look at it, let himself take a moment's comfort in its solidity, and in all that it symbolized. Then he replaced it in its hiding place and walked down the corridor, heading for the lift that would take him to the bridge.  
  
He had practical matters to attend to.  
  
Just as his captain would want.  
  
END 


End file.
